Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

The Quinzy

Yesterday, during the blizzard, Blair & his friend Christopher built a snow fort, or at least started one. Today the kids finished by placing a tarp over the top and shovelling snow all around the edges to keep it from blowing away.

So, here is there Southern Alberta Quinzy! A Quinzy is a traditionally built by shovelling snow into a large pile and then hollowing out the inside to make it like an igloo, but since we don't get much snow here the kids used a tarp for a roof.

Erinn looking rather blue!

Kirby sitting in her homemade snow lounger.

Blair warming up from the cold wind and -16 temperatures outside his shelter. As usual he got a little carried away and had his survival pack, bow & arrow as well as some candles inside just in case he couldn't find his way back to the house due to the stormy weather conditions.

Outside Decorating

With the recent arrival of snow its looking more & more like a Saskatchewan winter!

I got the last of the lights up just before the blizzard arrived late Friday night.

Erinn got the stickers up in the front window.

Looking very Christmasy!

Even "Brenda" got some lights this year!

Decorating for Christmas

Today was tree decorating day at the Zimmer household. Carolyn always gets more excited than the kids with decorating the house. Last night she had to make a last minute trip to Walmart, in the blizzard, to get a new set of lights for the tree since the old one wasn't working, then she was up getting the lights and garland on so the kids could decorate it first thing this morning.

Here's the before shot of the tree.

The kids anxiously waiting to start decorating.

Mom & dad supervising; mom more than dad of course.

The decorating frenzy!

The finishing touch, Erinn putting the angel on the top.

The after picture. Some presents even appeared right after we were done.

Go Riders!

Just showing my patriotism!

Go Riders!

Go Riders!

Blair's First Hunting Experience

"I was so happy!! I even cried a little."

"The deer was not that heavy I could drag it myself.

A coyote scared it out of the bush then boom, dad shot it, the deer that is!

So for supper tonight we are having fresh deer heart, mm mm!"

Above is our hunting trip we went out on today in Blair's own words! We have been hunting the area close to the house for the past couple of weeks, trying to shoot a "deer with horns", since I only had a "buck tag". Yesterday I picked Blair up after school and out we went, we followed some tracks in the fresh snow but we must of spooked the deer because he disappeared into the river valley just as it got dark.

This morning we were out again at first light, it was a great morning, no wind, -6 with 4 inches of fresh snow. As we pulled the truck up the road to our usual parking spot I seen a deer bedded right there, when she got up a buck got up too, right beside her, they hopped the fence and stopped 50 yards out in the field. I couldn't shoot since we were still on the Ridge and only 150 meters from the nearest house.

The deer ran down into the valley and we took up the chase only to spook them again and this time they ran back onto land we didn't have access to, so we decided to push bush to the creek and see if we could scare anything else up. As we got to our blind I had already counted 2 coyotes and had a third coming to my yipes & howls, I was thinking it was time to start hunting coyotes and forget the deer hunting.

As I was lining up a 200 yard shot on a coyote, over his head I noticed our buck from earlier heading back into the valley, I whistled for Blair and we started back the way we came, hoping to catch the buck on his was to the creek.

When we came to the end of the lake, we had a good view and decided to sit and wait, just as I stopped a deer broke through the trees 50 yards in front of us and stopped, it was looking over its shoulder back behind it. Blair and I crouched down and I brought my rifle up to have a look through my scope, I couldn't see antlers but just inside the treeline I could see a coyote watching the deer!

The deer continued to watch the coyote and I tried hard to see if there was any antlers on the deer, not seeing any I put the cross hairs on the 'yote and was just about to shoot him when the deer turned and took a few steps towards us, that's when I seen the horns!

BOOM! The shot echoed across the frozen morning and our buck was down.

I ran to the buck and could hear Blair behind me, bawling his eyes out and yelling at me, "Good job dad! Way to go! Awesome!" When we go to the buck he was down and wasn't getting back up, I looked at Blair and the tears were streaming down his face, "I don't know why I'm crying but I'm so excited!" he yelled out!

After tagging and gutting our little buck we dragged him the 1/4 mile up, out of the coulee to the truck and headed home with a hunting story to tell. This buck was a different one from the one we had spooked earlier in the morning and it looked like the coyote's had him on the run, so thanks to that coyote for bushing our buck out to us!

Now with our deer tag filled, on the last day of the season, we are heading out later to start putting a dent in the local coyote population!

The Unsuccessful Deer Hunters

Blair & I did our best to try and kill a deer this past week but to no avail. Murphy was with us since we seen lots of coyotes and geese but weren't hunting either!

Blair testing the ice on Bullshead Creek.

Blair rattling the horns for me in hopes of bringing in a buck.

The not-so-mighty hunters! We still have the last weekend of the month, hopefully by then the bucks are in full rut and we have some snow on the ground.

As my luck would have it I seen a nice buck on the way into town this morning, too bad we can only hunt Wednesday to Saturday!

Our Little Brownie Takes Her Oath

This week Erinn had her official Enrollment Night at Brownies.

Receiving her official Brownie Sash.

Saying her Brownie Promise.

Receiving her Brownie pin.

Congratulations Erinn!

Blair's First Reconciliation

Today, after weeks of studying and preparing, we celebrated Blair's First Reconciliation.

Of course he had to dress up for the occasion.

He did really good, mom & dad are pretty proud of their little man!

Happy Halloween!

We had a Happy Halloween, hope everyone else did too!

I'm confused, is Anakin my son or me?

Predator Quest!

When we went to Calgary we made a mandatory trip to the Bass Pro Shops and Carolyn figured Blair needed some hunting clothing...

So here he is, decked out better than his dad!

I've been shopping for an electronic game call for hunting coyotes. I did some shopping and some research on the Internet and this is what I came up with, a home-made e-caller. An electronic call from Bass Pro or Wholesale Sports started at $40 and went up to over $500. The cheaper one's had very limited options and only a half dozen sounds at the most and they had to be hand operated.
So, I came up with this; I picked up this little "iHome" speaker and a cheap MP3 player at Wal-Mart. I downloaded some calls from the Internet and viola, an e-caller for less than $40!

All that was left to do was go out and give it a try!

Blair patiently waiting for something to come in.

Which it did! Here's how it went;

We located a stand in some sage brush on the east side of a draw, in the valley were some buck brush and a small slough. We had seen a coyote cross the road to the north the previous night just after dark so we assumed that's the direction he would come from (which he did).

At first I set up my e-caller 50 meters west of us, we had a southerly breeze. The e-caller was on a continuous loop with a series of rabbit in distress calls, at various volume levels, that ran for 30 seconds to a minute with 1-2 minutes of silence in between.

We sat and waited and watched. There were several white-tailed deer feeding in the valley, a male pheasant strutting around and a cotton-tailed rabbit to watch. Then we heard some coyotes yipping and howling to the southwest. I retrieved my e-caller and brought it back to our hide (this was a mistake!).

I played some coyote calls to try and bring in the pack but this proved unsuccessful, so I tried a serious of rabbit in distress with my Predator Quest mouth call.

As I was scanning the surrounding hill sides I suddenly noticed a coyote approximately 200 meters to the north staring directly at us!

Blair was watching in the other direction so I got him to slowly turn around behind me so he could watch.

The coyote started making his way toward us, he disappeared below a hill and when he re-appeared he was headed southwest for the buck brush in the bottom of the valley. He was still 150 meters out and I decided to take the shot before he disappeared into the brush. I waited until he stopped and squeezed off a shot with my .17 hmr aimed for his chest, an instant later he whipped around and hit the afterburners, running back north. I fired a couple more fleeting shots at him as he got smaller and smaller in my scope but he didn't let up his pace.

I have no doubt he was enticed into the area by my e-caller and my mouth call was just icing on the cake.

So what did I learn? Next time I will be setting up the e-caller and leaving it out, then we'll just sit back and wait for the coyote to come right in and hopefully be able to nail him with the shotgun and some 00 buck at close range or a well placed shot with the .17 at less than 100 meters!

Carolyn's Birthday Present!

For my 40th birthday Carolyn threw a big surprise party for me, it was great even though I had asked for it to pass quietly like a ship in the night!

For her party I took her to Calgary to a Rascal Flatts Concert. We arrived early and went to the Olive Garden for supper before the concert. After a relaxing night in the hotel I took her shopping and to Bagoloc, our favourite Vietnamese restaurant, for lunch, than off to the Fossil store so she could custom build herself a watch. I hung out at the Bass Pro Shops!

You can tell by the smile on her face that she thoroughly enjoyed the concert!

Darius Rucker opened and wasn't half bad, I enjoyed his old Hootie (Hootie & the Blow Fish) songs.

The Flatts put on a spectacular show.

At first I thought the video screens would distract from their show but it was awesome!

It was a great concert, we are already planning the next one.

A week of Birthday Partys!

Over the past week we've celebrated a couple of birthdays as well as Thanksgiving.

No it wasn't Andrew's birthday but the kids roughed him up anyway!

My hot wife enjoying the party!

Abi getting ready to show dad she's got no boyfriends! Erinn was there for backup!!!

There's always gotta be a clown at a birthday party!

Kirby sitting with the little kids waiting for cake.

Oh look, another clown showed up!

She's learning to smile without showing her missing teeth.

Erinn's 7th birthday party! Daddy's little girl is growing up fast ;(

Erinn's neighbour friends; Lindsay & Claire.

There's that toothless grin we all love!

Is Winter Here Already?

Winter arrived in Pincher Creek while I was there this past week.

I attended a call just southwest of town and the snow was almost up to my knees in the field.

Of course the day I'm to head home I noticed this starting to roll over the mountains to the west.
If you look close you will see the bear trap we set just to the right of the big green aspen.

Driving back to Pincher Creek after setting our trap in Lundbreck looked like this.

By the time I hit Highway #3 it had stopped snowing but the highway was a sheet of curling ice, good thing the snow plow was ahead of me!